Blogging/Social Media
August 12, 2008
Nobody Is Representative
Posted by Kevin | (1) Comments | Print This Article
An interesting conversation in the comments at Acronym on their “blog backlash” case study, and then continued in Lisa Junker’s post on reaction to criticism. I said my piece in both comment threads, but there are some very interesting concepts here that merit further exploration.
First, going back to my original comment on the case study, in which I said it was patently ridiculous to suggest that bloggers are representative of majority viewpoints. That’s because I think it’s absurd to suggest that any one individual member is “representative” — be they a blogger, a listserve participant, a committee member, a past chairman, an officer, or whatever. She might be insightful, she might be wise, she might have good ideas, she might have found an issue that no one else had considered, she might be cranky and contrary — but none of that makes her representative.
As I said in my comment on the second post, we cling to comments from active or vocal members all too often because we don’t have anything else on which to rely. This is because many associations fall into a structure along the following lines:
- We answer to a Board, comprised of volunteers who by the very virtue of their self-selection as board members have proven that they are unlike most of the members
- We work with committees, comprised of volunteers who by the very virtue of their self-selection as committee members have proven that they are unlike most of the members
- We do a survey of the full membership every year or two that by its very nature is outdated by the time the results are compiled
So when we hear from real, actual members, we enthusiastically embrace what they say as “representative” because we don’t really know anything else about what our members think. (Lisa’s story about an association taking a year to revise a program because one member wrote a letter — this is NOT unusual, I’ve seen very similar things happen.)
BUT, now we have lots of tools and data available to determine what our members really “think” (I’ve written about this before), and so we should be a lot more clued in and able to respond to criticism in an appropriate way (when it’s merited, fix the problem; when it’s not, explain why it’s not). HOWEVER — when I refer to what members “think,” I’m really referring to what large percentages of them “do” (actual behavior) coupled with some ongoing qualitative queries.
I will use ASAE as an example. I did a search of old Blogoclump posts to find someone saying something about ASAE that I didn’t agree with. It wasn’t hard; Ben Martin apparently wrote a post saying that he’d decided ASAE’s listservers were no longer valuable and he dropped out of them.
I, however, find the listserves to be very valuable, and in fact the only tangible benefit to my ASAE membership (except maybe the magazine), and if I were to drop out of the listserves, dropping out of membership altogether wouldn’t be far behind (though I agree the software could use an upgrade).
So, the question is –
Is Ben representative of ASAE members?
Or am I representative of ASAE members?
I would posit that NEITHER OF US is representative, we’re just two individuals with blogs, and ASAE should no more base its decisions on what Ben thinks, or what I think, than on what the man in the moon thinks. What matters is the actual behavior of the actual members on a large scale.
How many subscribe, and to how many listserves, and is it growing or shrinking? What’s the percentage of lurkers versus active participants, and is it growing or shrinking? How many people are “dropping out” and how does that compare to prior years? And very important from the quality side of it, are the number of “frustrated” emails sent to the listserves (me-toos, complaints about repeats, people asking how to unsubscribe) growing or shrinking? This sort of data (both the numbers and considered quality reviews of the listserve conversations), reviewed on an ONGOING basis, could easily tell you if the software needs revamping (and, I’m willing to bet, would have revealed that the listserves needed some tweaking a long time ago) or if more drastic changes should be considered.
This is just one example — but it’s an important example of the type of analysis that associations should be doing about all their programs, all the time. Weighing programs and analyzing member behavior is not something to do once in a while, or when you get some complaints, but a regular part of what you do. Kill the programs that aren’t working (or change them). Create new ones. But if something is working, you should know it’s working, and not go all frantic when a small number of people don’t like it. You should be doing enough that there are other things you offer that they DO like … and if they don’t like anything, well, then why are they members at all?
(Oh, and I know the case study actually detailed a complaint about a board meeting, not a program, which I think may have warranted all of a thirty-second response rather than a day of hand-wringing … but I enjoyed where the comments took us.)
May 4, 2008
Wiki your workshop! (But don’t say wiki)
Posted by Kevin | (2) Comments | Print This Article
A quick and easy way to experiment with “user-generated content” is to use a basic wiki page to solicit ideas from members for a specific conference workshop or other kind of seminar. Last spring, we asked our members to add their best ideas for “customer retention” to a page and we used their submissions to help create a breakout at our annual meeting. Here’s how it worked:
- We created a page at writeboard.com
- We started the page off with some basic instructions on how to add ideas
- We solicited about 8 or 9 “seed” ideas from some of our “go-to” members and added them
- We sent an email out to our members and asked them for their best ideas with the link and password to the page, along with a deadline for submissions
- Before the deadline we sent a couple more reminders out
We wound up getting a pretty good response — about 40 or 50 submitted ideas (some people did choose to email me their ideas rather than post them to the wiki), of which around 30 we thought were really interesting. We added about 20 other ideas from other sources, and got one of our members, who happens to be a fairly dynamic presenter and organizer, to pull everything into a fast-paced 75-minute workshop we called “50 Ways to Leave Your Customers Wanting More.” We promoted the breakout as “the session created by our members!” at our conference earlier this year.
It wound up being one of our highest-attended and highest-rated workshops (though of course, a lot of this depends on picking the right person to organize it and deliver it). We’ll be using the content again, as an audio seminar or series of articles. And we will be using the same model to help develop other content since it worked out so well.
You could just as easily solicit ideas for something like this via email. I feel that the value of using a wiki is that the participants get to see the other ideas that have been submitted in “real time” which allows them to build on them, refrain from submitting something that has already been posted, and maybe get a quick idea they can put to use right away without having to wait for the workshop.
Depending on your audience, you may want to avoid using the word “wiki” when doing this. People know what a webpage is, they know how to login to a site, they know how to type and cut and paste, but they don’t necessarily know what a “wiki” is and using a strange term like that can erect a barrier. Give them the instructions they need in clear language that everyone understands.
And, I strongly recommend that you “seed” the page with content to avoid blank page syndrome.
April 23, 2008
The Foolishness of Crowds
Posted by Kevin | (2) Comments | Print This Article
So, social media lets people organize without organizations.
While it’s nice to wrap buzzwords like “social media” around things, this is nothing new; some of us have been dealing with “ad hoc” groups in our industry segments since long before anyone had heard of “blogging” let alone tried to create a whole new genre around it. Websites, listserves, message boards: none of it is quite snazzy enough to count as Web 2.0, but it’s all been pretty easy, cheap, and in some cases quite effective, for a long time now.
There are a couple things about these self-organized groups that pose both challenges for themselves, and for the associations they compete with:
PEOPLE ARE OFTEN WRONG ABOUT A WHOLE LOT OF DIFFERENT THINGS, AND LOVE SHARING THEIR ERRONEOUS ASSUMPTIONS AND JUDGMENTS WITH THEIR PEERS AS IF THEY WERE FACTS.
We’re often forwarded posts from one niche website in our industry (essentially a listserve that costs $50 a month) that have confused us because we are not sure whether to laugh or let our jaws drop. People share ideas and concepts that are outright wrong, in some cases beyond-the-borderline illegal, as if it is gospel.
Myths propagate themselves and pick up steam. Since these people are all essentially peers, working in the same industry, with access to the same communications tool (just click “send”), there is no way for credibility to be assigned. When others speak up and say “hey you’re wrong and what you’re advocating could cost people hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the dissent — if it is noticed at all — becomes a matter of disagreement, as opposed to one person being right, and one person being wrong.
On the one hand, it is frustrating to see members of an industry or profession you serve and love be led astray by (probably) well-meaning yet ill-informed (or, most likely, simply inexperienced) practitioners.
On the other hand, it is nice to be considered the place where people go for the RIGHT answers, and there is competitive advantage to be mined there. It has certainly worked well for us.
PEOPLE HAVE BIG EGOS, AND WILL TRY TO TURN THEIR “DISORGANIZED ORGANIZATIONS” INTO “REAL” ORGANIZATIONS FOR THE PURPOSES OF THEIR OWN AGENDA.
Though I haven’t read the book mentioned by Ben and Jeff, I got a kick out of this quote from the book which Ben placed on his blog:
“The jury is still out on whether any of the current interest in reforming the US health care system will change anything, but if I had to pick between MoveOn and groups like the self-organized strangers in Dallas for having the more profound effect, I’d bet on the ad hoc groups.”
Why do I find this amusing? Because MoveOn started out as — a little email group! They were circulating a petition to try and get Congress to censure Clinton rather than impeach him. (They failed, by the way.) And it turned into — apparently a big old-fashioned evil “organization” beset by these little social media networks.
Personally, I think it’s great that people can band together using the Internet to advocate for something, whether it’s a “Passenger’s Bill of Rights” or a speed bump on their local road. More power to them. I don’t view any of these groups as a threat to associations. If there are people loosely getting together on a single issue that intersects with your interest, then, uh — join them and get to know them and work with them or against them as you see fit. Don’t really see how they are all that much different from the little advocacy groups that have been springing up since time immemorial. They’re easier to form and so there will be more of them, but dealing with them is not exactly rocket science.
If people in your profession are using Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever all those sites are to “get together” then how is it a threat to your society? You can play catchup with a similar network of your own, or else you can sponsor their happy hour and buy them all a drink. (The latter is probably a lot easier and will have a bigger pay-off.)
The problem, of course, is that people have egos and agendas and big aggrandized visions, so many of them will try to turn their little one-issue groups into something bigger that can attract corporate funding. Some of them will succeed, most will fail, and the ones that succeed, if they are in your industry or profession, will become competitors for your association.
To which, I’m afraid I must say — so what? Competition is good! Deal with them as you do any other competitors. Learn from them, steal from them, crush them, work with them if you must — though on the whole my preference is for simply keeping them in your peripheral vision while you focus on serving your market best by creating new or better things they can’t get anywhere else. As I like to say, “We’re here to learn, we’re here to grow, and we’re here to win.”
What you should not do is gnash your teeth about this new “competition” and how it will affect your association. Yes, they may use new tools — but of course, YOU CAN USE THEM, TOO. Other than that, perhaps to the chagrin of some young and eager minds, and as I learned myself when I too was young and eager — there is indeed nothing new under the sun.
March 25, 2008
So We Might Get Sued, and In Exchange We Get … Something Really Cool, I Promise
Posted by Kevin | (8) Comments | Print This Article
I had entirely too much fun trashing Twitter yesterday. But, I am now beginning to regret it, because I feel compelled to finish my thought by talking about this “Fear of Social Media” thing that has apparently been discussed to death in the Blogoclump. And I’d promised myself I’d stay out of it because there is nothing more boring than bloggers talking about blogging, which is essentially what this is.
But, here goes.
If your goal, for whatever reason, is to get more associations (or just YOUR association) to use social media, then the first thing to do is:
Quit talking about some fictional “Fear of Social Media” as if it were a bona fide cultural phenomenon. This is an old trick that always backfires. Defenders of something accuse their detractors of being “afraid” because “afraid” sounds irrational and easy to deal with.
But detractors know full well that they are not being irrational, which makes them suspect that the defenders are being either disingenuous or stupid, and this makes them more resolute in their opinion, not less. No satisfying resolution can be reached because the key to a real resolution is understanding what your opponent thinks about an issue and why — and in this case, both sides have decided to view their opponents’ perspective in a way that does not gibe with its reality.
Which means the winner in this discussion winds up being whichever one has the power to say, “Because I said so.”
According to the many conversations being held about this specific issue, the “defenders” of social media have the severe disadvantage in most organizations because it is the “detractors” who either sit in the corner office or have the ear of those who do. Specifically, the discussions have focused on “fear of legal ramifications.”
The problem is that the defenders are not actually listening to what the detractors are saying.
Just like any other business, associations do things every day that they might get sued for. Companies, and organizations, get sued every day; the only way to avoid legal problems altogether is to not operate at all.
Just like any other business, associations decide to do these things based on an assessment of risk and reward. We want to minimize the risk even though we know we can’t eliminate it, but we also want to maximize the reward — and this always requires risk.
If you want to get your association to engage in “social media” for whatever reason, and the response you hear is, “We are concerned about the legal ramifications,” then there are two things you can be sure of:
What they are ABSOLUTELY NOT SAYING is, “We love the idea, but are afraid we might get sued.”
What they are 100% DEFINITELY SAYING is, “So, the downside is we might get sued, and the upside is … absolutely nothing.”
Your goal, if you want “social media” (or just about anything else) done, is NOT to strategize on how to overcome fears of legal ramifications. It’s a pointless endeavor because you can always get sued over just about anything, and there are always ways to minimize those risks. No, your goal should be to figure out what, if anything, that upside is. Because if you don’t know what it is, and you can’t explain it in a really clear and compelling way, then you frankly don’t deserve to win the argument.
Compounding your problem is that many of the “detractors” you’re dealing with already have an opinion of “social media” — which is the real reason they are not particularly interested in your request — and if you want to know what that opinion is, read the last half of my last post on Twitter.
Your “upside” needs to be clear and compelling enough to overcome that.
March 24, 2008
Who Cares?
Posted by Kevin | (6) Comments | Print This Article
Cindy is obviously a much nicer and more succinct person than I am.
Twitter asks, “What are you doing?” and Cindy’s one-word response is, “Why?”
My two-word response is, “Who cares?” (And that’s censored down from a three-word response.)
Seriously. I really don’t care what you’re doing right now. I don’t care that you’re stuck in an airport line (and “boy doesn’t security suck”); I don’t care what you had for lunch; I don’t care how many pounds you gained or lost this morning; I don’t care that you’re having computer troubles at work; I don’t care if you find something funny or sad; I may be a mean ol’ SOB but I just plain don’t give a flying $%^&.
BUT — here’s the thing: I COULD CARE about all of the things I just mentioned if they were written in an engaging, thoughtful, and meaningful way that used the scenario in question to engage ME and strike a chord in ME and make ME think about something, anything in a new light and ponder how it might apply or in any way affect MY life.
Which is pretty damn near impossible to do in 140 characters or less.
And if you think that all the capital ME and MYs make ME sound selfish, then you are completely missing the point — not just of this blog post, but of COMMUNICATION in general.
Here’s my point: I’m not anti-Twitter. I don’t care enough to be anti-Twitter — never joined, never subscribed, never had any interest other than the occasional bemused look at people’s “feeds” on their blogs. If you think it’s a great tool and resource for your life, then terrific! Use it to your heart’s content.
My point is that it represents exactly what is wrong with “social media” in that it is all SOCIAL and not enough MEDIA. By “soclal” I mean social like a bar or a cocktail party, where the conversation goes something like this:
YOU: Say something witty, engaging, and downright near profound
SOMEONE ELSE: Says something else while you wait for them to shut up so you can talk about yourself again
When folks scoff at the concept of social media, it is exactly this sort of thing they’re talking about. Don’t believe the legal questions and roadblocks that get thrown up; what they are really saying is, “Isn’t that stuff just a bunch of small people with big egos who like to talk about themselves?”
In his comment on Cindy’s post, Jamie Notter said, “People said very similar things about blogs a few years back.”
Guess what? They were right.
While people lately have been posting ad nauseam in the clump about “fear of social media” what seems to have been completely missed is that sometimes people have bad impressions of social media … not because they’re “afraid” of it … but because social media has EARNED those bad impressions.
All too often it’s a bunch of people talking about themselves, posting videos and podcasts that amuse themselves, continuously segregating themselves into those who “get it” and those who “don’t.” They’re not communicating; they’re talking.
Which may be a surefire way to amuse your friends, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a communications strategy for your association.
July 12, 2006
Feeds Aren’t Replacing Email
Posted by Kevin | (3) Comments | Print This Article
It is no secret that I am an unabashed fan of email newsletters (when done correctly — if only more of them were). Last month web usability guru Jakob Nielsen released a new report on email newsletters and had some interesting things to say in the executive summary — I just came across it this morning, and no, I haven’t bought the whole 544-page report yet.
In particular, feeds aren’t replacing newsletters. While the report states the obvious in pointing out that people should stop using the phrase RSS since 82% of the users in the study had no idea what it means, more interesting was the lukewarm reception the concept itself is receiving among end users. Nielsen writes:
“Users had very mixed feelings about feeds. Some people liked viewing information from multiple sites in a single centralized location instead of having to go to each site. Some users also liked scanning a list of headlines without seeing any content that they didn’t ask for. A final benefit some users appreciated was the ability to determine when they would go and view their news items. This is in contrast with newsletter arrival times, which users can’t control.
“On the other hand, many users had negative feelings about feeds. People who are already suffering from information overload resent having to go to yet another source of information. In contrast, email newsletters arrive in a tool that people already use, so they don’t add yet another thing for over-burdened users to do. Email is also easier to archive for later use, whereas feeds have an ephemeral nature.”
Possibly this will change as RSS is “built in” to web browsers, which are a “tool that people already use.” However, I use both Firefox and IE7 interchangeably, and in both cases have used their built-in feed reading tools, and in both cases stopped doing so — not because of any conscious decision to stop but because it just never seemed that useful. (It might surprise diehard Firefox addicts to find that IE7’s subscription tools seem more elegant and intuitive than Firefox’s “live bookmarks.”)
So, what about stand-alone newsreading? Nielsen writes (emphasis added):
“SEVERAL PARTICIPANTS IN OUR STUDY HAD STOPPED USING THE FEEDS ON THEIR MY YAHOO PAGE. Many previous studies have found that users are reluctant to spend time customizing portals, so it’s not surprising that some users simply decided to stop looking at that part of the page rather than edit their preference settings.
“Finally, some users resented the fact that news feeds are divorced from the context of the publisher’s website. These users preferred the serendipity that came from visiting a full-fledged website that offered options beyond the current headlines.”
I am not surprised that people tend to abandon their customized feed pages like My Yahoo. Personally, it took me a couple years to get used to using Bloglines, but I finally do it. However, I pretty much use it to keep up with only about 20 blogs in one folder. There are about 200 other blogs I’ve subscribed to in other folders but I generally don’t open their feeds to look at new posts more than once or twice a month at the most. Compared to most bloggers who claim to track thousands and thousands of feeds these numbers must seem rather paltry but frankly it’s higher than I need. There are just too many blogs out there that confuse “frequent” with “interesting.”
Nielsen continues (emphasis added):
“News feeds are definitely not for everybody, and they’re not a replacement for email newsletters. Feeds can supplement newsletters for sites that cater to users who prefer a centralized view of headlines. These are primarily newspaper sites and other sites with a heavy focus on news and breaking stories, as well as sites that target Internet enthusiasts. FOR SITES THAT TARGET MAINSTREAM BUSINESS USERS OR A BROAD CONSUMER AUDIENCE, NEWS FEEDS MAY BE LESS IMPORTANT. Such sites might be better off emphasizing higher-quality newsletters and a choice of publication frequency.
“Also, our eyetracking of users reading news feeds showed that PEOPLE SCAN HEADLINES AND BLURBS IN FEEDS EVEN MORE RUTHLESSLY THAN THEY SCAN NEWSLETTERS. When you appear in somebody’s news reader, your site has a diminutive footprint that’s rubbing shoulders with a flood of headlines from many other sites …
“Feeds are a cold medium in comparison with email newsletters. FEEDS DON’T FORM THE SAME RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMPANY AND CUSTOMERS THAT A GOOD NEWSLETTER CAN BUILD. … Given that newsletters are a warmer and much more powerful medium, it is probably best for most companies to encourage newsletter subscriptions and promote them over feeds on their website.”
It’s been hip to write email off for years, but even while spam filters and short attention spans make good email marketing harder and harder, nothing else comes close in terms of relationship, delivery, and measurable results. As Nielsen concludes:
“Four years ago, in our first report about newsletter usability, we said about the future of email newsletters: ‘There may be none. Legitimate use of email is at war with spam, and spam may be winning.’ Although four years is a very short period in which to assess big trends, we now believe that this assessment was too negative. Email newsletters are so powerful that the best of them do have a future, despite ever-more adverse conditions.”
In other words, the problem with your organization’s email newsletter is not “email as a medium.” The problem with your organization’s email newsletter is the way you’re doing it.
UPDATE: Just read Ben’s post on RSS from yesterday. I agree with him that it’s a good idea for associations to start offering feeds before people start asking for them, not after. While it’s still an open question as to how feeds are really going to be adapted by our end users/customers/members, feeds are now so easy to generate it’s something we should all offer and monitor.
But don’t go swimming in the deep end of the Kool Aid. Unless your members are bloggers or podcasters or programmers or other geek enthusiast types, email newsletters, when well done, will produce better results for the foreseeable future.